Return of the Mac ?

[My Left Foot]

I saw in todays indo that Ciaran Mac is perhaps being tempted out of retirement. Alan Mulhall spoke about it.

It would be great of him to do it as a couple of older heads would be good in the squad but he really owes us nothing.

[bracknaghboy]

Ciaran should leave well enough alone. He hasn't been intercounty training for 10 months now and the tank was starting to empty earlier and earlier in the last couple of years.There will be nothing to be gained at this stage to see him get the run around in Portlaoise in 6 weeks time. That said he is a proud Offaly man and might be tempted if he thinks there is anything he can do to help.

[Lone Shark]

Ciaran should leave well enough alone. He hasn't been intercounty training for 10 months now and the tank was starting to empty earlier and earlier in the last couple of years.There will be nothing to be gained at this stage to see him get the run around in Portlaoise in 6 weeks time. That said he is a proud Offaly man and might be tempted if he thinks there is anything he can do to help.

Disagree completely. He was excellent in 2011, arguably man of the match in both qualifier fixtures, not to mention producing a crucial late intervention in the league game against Limerick which won it for us.

He owes us nothing, but it would be a huge boost if he wanted to come back in.

[townman]

i think it would be a silly move for Ciaran we owes offaly nothing but to come back with a few weeks before the kildare game would be madness
if he was in his early 30's wouldn't be to bad, but i think it will be silly of him to come back and get ran silly around portlaoise by kildare
what ever about coming back to play Carlow or louth but one of the fitness teams out there kildare best leave as it is Mac.

[In the long grass]

[quote="townman"] silly of him to come back and get ran silly around portlaoise by kildare
quote]


If knew anything about Ciaran McManus you would know that this simply is not true. One of the fittest men ever to play the game and probably fitter than many players in the squad at present.

[townman]

silly of him to come back and get ran silly around portlaoise by kildare
quote]


If knew anything about Ciaran McManus you would know that this simply is not true. One of the fittest men ever to play the game and probably fitter than many players in the squad at present.

look Ciaran was a great footballer for offaly down the years but in all fairness if you think Ciaran will be up to the fitness of the kildare footballer i don't know.
thats not to say, he wouldn't be as fit as some of the offaly footballers that are there at the moment.

[llkj]

I would say that him returning or not, comes down to the reason why he quit in the first place. He came out at the time and gave public interviews saying that his time had come, time to move on, it was all his decision etc. Was that actually the case, or was his decision made for him by someone else, and the public were fed the 'retirement decision'? If the latter is the case, then you can see why he would want to take up the invite to come back in. However, if he felt he had enough last year, then I think that he would be wrong to come back in now.

If he does come back, then best of luck to him. I don't think fitness will be an issue at all.

[DAF]

Offalys two best players last year were McManus and Scott Brady.Despite being Offalys oldest player he was one of the sharpest last year and his fitness levels put alot of the other members of the panel to shame.Persoanally I was surpised he retired as he still has a lot to contribute.

They should play him at full forward and launch the ball in on op of him.We havent a hope of being able to work the ball through Kildare so the long ball into the square is our only option for any chance of getting a decent score.

[Lone Shark]

Offalys two best players last year were McManus and Scott Brady.Despite being Offalys oldest player he was one of the sharpest last year and his fitness levels put alot of the other members of the panel to shame.Persoanally I was surpised he retired as he still has a lot to contribute.

They should play him at full forward and launch the ball in on op of him.We havent a hope of being able to work the ball through Kildare so the long ball into the square is our only option for any chance of getting a decent score.

Kildare's full back line in training spend most of their time dealing with a full forward line that revolves around Tomás O'Connor. If there is any approach they will be ready for, that's it.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

McManus was probably deemed surplus to requirements at the start of the year, llkj's argument is spot on!

However, if he was to come back in and drive on the tempo in training and offer some leadership then fine. And in the course of that if he could offer something on the field better again. Personally I think he could have a role to play in a forward line and also from long range frees as I can see kildare fouling us as we dont have a reliable freetaker from any sort of distance. Nigel Dunne seems to be accurate enough from a 35 m range.

But lets face it, we really need to be able to move on from Mac, and its time Dalton and Smith showed are they men or mice. They have

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

they have both walked away and now come back, Dalton as player of the year and Smith as an undoubted talent. They will struggle against Kildare, but its how they do after this that will define the championship.

[kingscounty]

fair play to mac if he does come back and i hope he does well , but it doesnt say alot for club football in offaly when we have to go and start calling back players that have given offaly football everything over the last 15 years.id have no problem with mcmanus training with the lads and trying to lift the spirit but he shouldnt be expected to play a major role in the kildare game. if he plays and it goes wrong everyone will be on his back saying he shouldnt have came back, he has given everything to offaly football down through the years and its time for the younger lads to stand up and give the committment mcmanus has over the years. i cant remember mcmanus ever leaving a panel or complaning about having to train hard like some have done over the last while. personally i dont think he would suit full forward as he is not big enough , (tomas o connor 6ft 3ins and built ). the only way i would use mcmanus if we had to would be if the game was tight with 10 - 15 mins to go run him on and he might lift the rest.

[DAF]

Offalys two best players last year were McManus and Scott Brady.Despite being Offalys oldest player he was one of the sharpest last year and his fitness levels put alot of the other members of the panel to shame.Persoanally I was surpised he retired as he still has a lot to contribute.

They should play him at full forward and launch the ball in on op of him.We havent a hope of being able to work the ball through Kildare so the long ball into the square is our only option for any chance of getting a decent score.

Kildare's full back line in training spend most of their time dealing with a full forward line that revolves around Tomás O'Connor. If there is any approach they will be ready for, that's it.

Yeah but with the new square ball rule the full forward now has a massive advantage alot of scrappy goals will be scored this year by teams who adopt the big full forward tactic.I cant see any other way to get anywhere close to Kildare.If we want to get close to them we will have to score at least 3 goals.We dont have the footballers or the levels of fitness required to play through Kildare the way you would like to so I think the long ball into the square is going to be the only option.I am a big fan of having a big full forward at all times anyway.

[Lone Shark]

Offalys two best players last year were McManus and Scott Brady.Despite being Offalys oldest player he was one of the sharpest last year and his fitness levels put alot of the other members of the panel to shame.Persoanally I was surpised he retired as he still has a lot to contribute.

They should play him at full forward and launch the ball in on op of him.We havent a hope of being able to work the ball through Kildare so the long ball into the square is our only option for any chance of getting a decent score.

Kildare's full back line in training spend most of their time dealing with a full forward line that revolves around Tomás O'Connor. If there is any approach they will be ready for, that's it.

Yeah but with the new square ball rule the full forward now has a massive advantage alot of scrappy goals will be scored this year by teams who adopt the big full forward tactic.I cant see any other way to get anywhere close to Kildare.If we want to get close to them we will have to score at least 3 goals.We dont have the footballers or the levels of fitness required to play through Kildare the way you would like to so I think the long ball into the square is going to be the only option.I am a big fan of having a big full forward at all times anyway.

I like having the tactic as a plan B myself, not a plan A, but it's something that Offaly teams do terribly badly. Every football coach in Offaly, from U10 to senior, teaches a variant on the same tactic, which is long, low ball to the corners. That ball is ideally delivered at pace, on the break, from between the 65s or even just behind. Then when you ask Offaly teams play a big full forward, out of habit they give the long high ball, but they end up giving from the same place and it drops short. I've seen it happen with county teams, club teams, school teams, underage teams, and it's so frustrating. Alan Mulhall has played the role reasonably well for Walsh Island, and John Kenny has done it in a pinch for Tullamore, but that's largely it and even those have been qualified successes. Teams that do this right play the long ball diagonally from just the midfield side of the opposition 45. Offaly players are too long in the habit of kicking it way before then.

If Offaly tries this tactic now I'd bet steaks to sandwiches that we'd watch long ball after long ball being kicked from midfield and our target man would be chasing out to the corners, or else the deliveries would be eaten up by opposition sweepers.

If I thought we'd do it right, then I'd agree with you, but you'd have to have been working on this from January to have a hope of changing lads.

[Bord na Mona man]

While McManus played a lot of career in midfield, but he was a never a notable high ball fielder.
The big full forwards who cause trouble are generally either big beanstalks or big tanks.

I remember a few years ago McManus was picked for Offaly to start at full forward, I can't remember the match, but it was a league game in Tellamore.
For about 25 minutes any high balls towards him were sliced and misdirected and any of the usual low balls were cut out by the full back line. He was quickly moved out the field to his normal position.
If it was ever going to work, I'm guessing it would have needed 4 or 5 games to properly bed in.

When Offaly played Kildare in January and Alan Mulhall was nominally the full forward target. What we got were high diagonal balls on top of William Mulhall who was corner forward. We got it half right at least!
No high ball actually made it to Alan above chest height. The ones that were actually directed towards him dropped about 15 metres short. The Kildare spare man, spent the day mopping these up and running up the field starting attacks.

I feel that even if we did find the right man for the role, I'm sure not the team could properly execute it.